Monsoons are here

I keep thinking we will get some pictures to post, but we haven't yet, so I'll just fill you in by writing.

Monsoon season came a month early. It is so cold and rainy and wet - the whole state is going to need massive doses of anti-depressants by November because we didn't get to have any summer. We literally had 5 days of summer since June.

Our garden didn't grow again - the beets and carrots put on tops (that were bitter and funny tasting), but no bottoms. We still have our peas growing and hope to have some of them to eat, but we had to kill the rest of the garden because it became overrun with chickweed and pineapple weed. We decided to put plastic flowers on the deck because we just can't get anything to grow up here, but they actually all got ripped up by wind and blown throughout the neighborhood. We'll definitely get a picture of that posted soon.

Brian has done a lot of fishing in August. Welding jobs dried up and we had company, so he spent a lot of time chasing salmon and a couple halibut trips. The weather has been so foul that they only took the boat out twice. Tomorrow is the last day to use eggs for bait on the river, so he is going in the afternoon. He got a welding job for today and tomorrow. (YAY)

He goes hunting on the 8th of September - his usual spot -flying out of Tok. He is taking a friend from here and a friend from Joseph that he grew up with. I hope they all get one.

Alicia is going to teach classes at the scrapbook store. She can teach or have crops whenever she wants to schedule them. We hope they get a good turnout.

We gave a baby shower at our house last week. That was fun, we seldom have things like that out here because it is so far for everyone to come, but they carpooled and we all had a lovely time.

the next day, Alicia had to do her Master Canner duties and teach a couple hours of canning at church. She got a great response from all the ladies who went and they all learned new things. Either they were non-canners and learned the basics, or they were old-time canners that learned the new safety tips, so everyone came away feeling like they got something out of the class.

We judged at the state fair again, which we always enjoy. The fair was in the middle of a raging monsoon, but Alicia and I decided to go anyway, figuring there would be good parking and not too many crowds. We were drenched when we were done, but it was fun, and it wasn't crowded. the next day, the sun came out and it was a really beautiful summer day and they said the fair was really crowded, so we were glad we had braved the elements and had the fairgrounds to ourselves. We didn't enter anything this year....you know, some years are just like that.

Well, Happy Labor Day to everyone - have good trips all of you who are traveling and Joanna - take lots of pictures in South Africa.

Love, Charlotte

Seldovia

Seldovia harbormasters office, from the boat harbor.
Here is a picture of the walkway down to the harbor, and of a few town buildings.
Seldovia Slough, low tide. They were trying to kayak down the slough, because it was too rough out in the bay, but the tide was too low so that didn't work too good.
this is just a picture from the boat ride over of the land across the bay.
My friend Carolee as an eskimo girl.
here's yours truly as an eskimo girl.

These are just a few pictures from my trip last week to Seldovia. I went to help my friend Carolee with the traveling and teaching - we were teaching the girls camp girls to do a little mini scrapbook for their camp craft project. The project went very well - there were only 2 girls out of 14 that weren't interested, everyone else participated and did a really nice job on their books. Friday it was really nice water/weather on the way over, but that night a big storm blew in and the waves on the way home were anywhere from 5-10 feet. Good thing we were in a big boat (65ft.). They were huge rolling waves, so on the one hand it was kind of cool, but on the other an hour and fifteen minutes of that is a lot. After about 1/2 hour 45 minutes the novelty wore off. hehe. But it was still good. We got to see a few otters on the way over too, so that was fun.

Not much else is new around here. We're wishing that we had gotten some of that hot summer that everyone in the lower 48 is enjoying. Its been really kind of chilly here, and the mosqitos have been horrible (its a combination of perfect mosquito weather, and our cat ate all the swallows that usually live here and eat the bugs). But oh well! My peas are blooming this week, so maybe I'll get a good crop of peas yet.

Work is pretty slow this week. Hasn't been much going on. Hope it picks up next week.

Oh, and I was going to say, 307 people live in Seldovia - its kind of a tiny strange town. Their only marketing scheme seemed to be that "at one point Seldovia was bigger and more important than Homer". Guess you have to market what you have huh? hehe. They do grow killer berries over there though! Alicia